The invention relates to an assembly tool for detaching and applying components lined up and attached to a belt or tape at an assembly position in which one component after the other is successively separated from the tape and ejected. The thus ejected components may be then applied in an intended sequence.
Tapes for lining up components are already widely used, particularly where components are to be processed repeatedly on a large scale in an assembly position. In these cases, the tape forms an advantageous aid for automatic conveyance of the components to the assembly position in which the components are separated from the tape and processed as desired according to their application.
A tape for lining up nails and an assembly tool serving to separate the individual nails and to drive them in is known from DE-OS 36 06 901. In that patent, the tape is formed by guide bushes for the individual nails and cross members connect the guide bushes to one another. The assembly tool for the nails combined in this way to form a tape contains a guide channel which converges radially to an expulsion bore of which the cross section is adapted to the profile of the tape equipped with nails. A piece of the tape containing several nails is inserted into this advance channel as a sort of magazine with a limited number of nails, the foremost nail entering the expulsion bore. A spring-loaded slider presses the rear end of the magazine. For separating and driving in a nail with the mounting surrounding the nail as a constituent of the tape, a piston is used which is contained in the assembly tool and advances into the expulsion bore, separates the nail with its mounting and, during a further advance, drives the nail into any workpiece. After the piston has been returned, the magazine is advanced by one nail so that another nail with its mounting is available in the expulsion bore for the next operation. The entire magazine is processed in this way to the last nail, whereupon a new piece of tape is inserted into the guide channel as a magazine.
When using components which are lined up virtually continuously onto a belt or tape and can have different forms, the known supply of individual components by removal from a magazine is unsuitable as, when using an assembly tool known from DE-OS 36 06 901, the assembly tool has to be adapted with respect to the expulsion bore and the supply channel in each case, depending on the form of the component. Furthermore, the spring-loaded slider used with the known assembly tool is unsuitable in the case of components which are lined up virtually continuously on a tape.
For supplying continuously taped electrical elements, a tape has already been provided according to DE-OS 35 44 221 which, in addition to the row of elements, has a row of holes in the manner of a punched tape. Projections of a spiked roller by means of which the tape with the elements is guided stepwise into an assembly position engage in the holes of this row of holes. In the assembly position, one respective element is removed from the tape which is preserved, at least with respect to its perforated region, and therefore has adequate internal stability to be carried off by the spiked roller.
In our co-pending German patent application DE 41 09 772.6 (EP 0 506 307) is described and claimed a belt providing continuous lining up of plastics components which are attached to one another by a lateral thread extending on the plastics components such that, during conveyance of the belt one plastics component after another reaches an assembly position in which the plastics component is separated from the belt, characterised in that at least one guide element which can be grasped during conveyance of the belt is moulded integrally on each plastics component such that during the moulding of plastics component and guide element, one or more threads are moulded on the guide element, plastics component and guide element being connected via at least one crosspiece which can be disconnected in the assembly position, in which the plastics component is held in a defined manner by means of the guide element.
It is one object of the invention to provide an assembly tool of the type mentioned above which allows the processing of continuously taped components of different form with high positional accuracy during the separation and ejection of the components and reliably carries off the remaining tape freed from the components.
It is one particular object of the invention to provide such an assembly tool which can be fed with a belt such as those described in EP 0 506 307.